promote healthy atheism

My mother died a month ago, and this week was her funeral. In accordance with her views it was a humanism ceremony. I read an excerpt from Richard Dawkins ‘Unweaving the Rainbow’.

So many people commented to me afterwards that they had never been to a non-religious ceremony before, but they were moved by how personal and appropriate it was. The humanist minister was outstanding, the music was just perfect and there were no unanswered questions about how any loving god could take away such a good person at such a young way and in such cruel circumstances. Instead we were asked to reflect on the following: “all living things are subject to death and we, being a part of nature, are no exception. And sometimes nature can be so, so cruel. And when death arrives, it can be a rude reminder that life is only temporary and that whenever it is finished, the pattern stands in its completeness – with no negotiation or re-negotiation.”

Promoting atheism is a wonderful thing, even if it never leads to conversion. I have many friends, and even people that I don’t know that well who thought atheism is synonymous with devil worshipping. So even just telling people that atheism is a lack of belief in god, and convincing them that it is not devil worshipping, is in a sense promoting it. I have done much more than just that, although I have never converted anyone. The main problem I have run into is when fundamentalists just shut you out. Many think, okay, he’s the enemy, don’t listen to him. They can’t accept the facts. Literally, they take faith over scientific understanding of things, and that’s what makes them so crazy. I have tried to solve this problem over and over, and have found about 20 percent of people are actually willing to listen to what I have to say. That works out to 3 people who I have raised serious doubts with. They now question their faith, the validity of the bible, etc., yet don’t want to accept atheism because of the social ramifications with their family, etc. Anyway, atheism is the word of mankind, it is much greater than the word of god (as invented by mankind), and it must be promoted as much as possible, while free speech still permits it. I say that because in the United States of America, I wouldn’t be that surprised if they decided to repeal the first amendment. Anyway, Darwin bless.

Which of the following is a more plausible option?

• There is no god
• We are a result of physics laws and chemicals, some known and well understood, others yet to be known

• There is a powerful and divine entity
• It wants to be worshipped and prayed to
• It created the world about 4000 years ago and did it in approximately 6 days
• It had a son about 2000 years ago that should also be worshipped
• It let humans know about itself by direct dialogue at the beginning, but after its son, it only occasionally intervenes and or communicates via cryptic messages
• It wrote a book outlining rules for living and worshiping itself. This book contains contradictory statements and others statements that are open to interpretation
• It is particularly fond of beetles

I live near San Francisco. Last night (2007-Mar-28), I accidentally saw on the news the Battle Cry rally in San Francisco.

You can read the story here,
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2985141
or, better yet, watch the news clip (8 minutes)
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2990885

Warning – the news clip may be disturbing.

It literally made me sick to see those brainwashed youngsters rolling their eyes in prayer at the command of a religious fanatic preacher who was selling them CDs, books and t-shirts… Those kids didn’t look mentally sane to me. And I really hope appearances were deceiving.

Had I lived in San Francisco, I would promote healthy atheism by trying to shake a few of those teens to their rational senses… although, judging by the ecstatic look on their faces, my chances would probably be infinitesimal.

For most of my life I’ve kind of been agnostic until earlier this month when we had my cat put down. I know it sounds trivial but it’s the first time I’ve ever lost someone/thing that I’ve been really close to. I was really upset, don’t think I’ve ever felt worse. I thought to myself that “he’s gone to a better place” to try and make myself feel better but deep down I didn’t truly believe it. It was harder to accept that he had gone and that was it, but I feel better now, knowing that I haven’t lied to myself.

While perhaps If God is so smart, why do you fart? is about as short as it gets, my vote goes to Why Does God Hate Amputees – The Executive Summary.

I think in order to do this, I first have to be comfortable admitting to people that I am a non-believer. I’ve done it a few times, but only when it was the only option.

I think that, just like any other label, there are misconceptions and stereotypes and things about atheists, and because ignorance leads to intolerance and fear, this makes people afraid to accept atheists, which leads to atheists and other non-believers being afraid to “come out”, which fuels the myths and stereotypes because there aren’t a lot of people around to de-bunk them…I don’t know if any of this is making sense…my point is that I think this is a very worthwhile goal, and with time we might be able to reduce the fear a bit and make it easier for others to admit that they don’t believe…

I got soured on joining atheist groups a few years ago. I would come to the meetings, and it was an interesting kind of thing to participate in, but most of the members gave me the creeps. We had little in common besides atheism and major differences in our approach to interpreting social forces and therefore, obviously, in politics.

The problem I think stems largely from the fact that atheists have no positive beliefs to create a set of well-defined values. This isn’t a problem for atheism philosophically, nor a barrier to living a moral life as an atheist, but it does make it difficult for us to form and maintin groups around this shared viewpoint. The vast majority of athists, I think, are very independently minded. They go their own way and are not inclined to join groups just for the sake of joining, so those who are left share a peculiar alternative set of characteristics. You have the people who are there because they are opposed to the religious right, you have the people who are there because they are full blown communists and have decided that if Marx said that religion was the opiate of the masses then there must be something wrong with it, and you have the kind of people who will just join anything so that they have somewhere to go on Sunday morning.

I can readily embrace humanism as I understand it, as the tradition of the Renaissance and the enlightenment and in the political values held by Thomas Jefferson and some of the other founders. What I cannot understand or embrace though are those who profess to be humanists but who place humans below other animals in importance or eagerly rather than sadly advocate reducing people’s freedom.

A healthy atheism would, I think be a modern humanism that derived from the same values as 18th century humanism. We consider humans first, before other animals, and regard the natural world as the domain of mankind best stewarded for the purpose of supporting future generations through the institution of several property, because property is not only the best way of preserving value in natural resources it is a natural right, and property is a consequence of the fact that someone can always be found who has the final say over the disposal of any resource.

A humanism that improves the lot of mankind will have to face up to the fact that the free market in addition to science is one of the chief institutions of the improvement of the human condition from ancient times to the present.

yeah, you know, im just not that into this right now. not something i can concentrate whole heartedly on. so off the list it goes. best of luck to all who have a likeminded goal! keep up the good work!

This may seem a little strange, but it hit me just a few minutes ago that part of promoting healthy atheism is to demonstrate that atheists are not, as a rule, opposed to the faith of others.

Previously, I have avoided (as much as possible) commenting on or cheering goals from people that seem to attribute too much to faith or that give credit for things to a divine power. However, that struck me as a cruel thing to do. After all, if I expect someone who has faith in god to support my atheism, then I should support their belief as well.